THE MÖBIUS TRIP

The next day, they left before dawn to be clear of the crowded harbor before daylight. This time of the year, the harbor and the inner gulf were awash with boats of all kinds enjoying the summer sun. Sailing boats, for yachting was a fire in the blood of many New Zealand people; motor boats, because some people just like to go fast; and a multitude of smaller craft, from Windsurfers to Jet Skis to kayaks.

There were families and fishermen and foreign freighters. Tane hoped they wouldn’t run into any scuba divers, and luckily they didn’t.

The plan was simple. Too simple, Tane thought, but they just didn’t have any more information to make more detailed plans with. It would take them two days to cruise up to the Bay of Islands in the Möbius. That second night, they would sneak onto the island, break into the lab using the passcode, and look around for…for what?

He was glad that Rebecca was going to be there. He’d have no idea what to look for and wouldn’t even know it if he found it. But no doubt she would make sense of what was in the filing cabinets, or the petri dishes, or whatever it was that they found.

And how to stop the Chimera Project. That bothered him the most. But he guessed that would depend on what they found.

They stocked the compact refrigerator of the Möbius with five days’ supply of perishables and packed the small larder with bread and tins.

There was no bath or shower on board, for space reasons, but Tane cycled down to the local boat shop and picked up a few bars of sailor soap, the kind that lathers in salt water.

“We can take a bath every day,” he said. “Just open the hatch.”

“Yes, Mother,” Fatboy said with a grin.

Because there were only three of them, there was plenty of room on the three spare bunks for extra clothes, towels, and assorted gear that you would usually take on a camping trip. The three black wet suits, masks, fins, and assorted other gear took up one of the bunks.

Tane brought a pack of cards, and Fatboy even squeezed his guitar on board. Rebecca brought her computer, which by now had a wireless connection that allowed her to access the Internet from anywhere. Even, they discovered, using the aerial on the buoy, from underneath the surface of the ocean.

Exams were over, and whatever the results might be, there was nothing Tane could do about that until the next year. They were now on vacation, and when the weather shone out clear, blue, and calm on the first morning, it seemed that all was right with the world.

Tane’s mum and dad had been given a story about a camping trip, which they had no reason to disbelieve, and Rebecca’s mum came down to the kitchen the night before they left while they were packing up the last few odds and ends.

Tane could never quite understand, although he would never say this to Rebecca, how normal her mother looked. How sane.

She wore jeans and a casual T-shirt, just like any other mum, around the house. Her hair was always brushed in a neat bob, and she always wore makeup. Not over the top, just a little, like his mum wore to go to the shopping mall.

She came down just like any other mother and wished them well on their boat trip.

“Thanks, Mum,” Rebecca said. “I’ve made you a casserole. Enough for two or three days. It’s in the fridge, and there’s leftover pizza in the freezer if you get hungry.”

“Oh, you didn’t need to fuss around like that,” her mum said. “I’m quite capable of looking after myself.”

Tane caught a small glance from Rebecca and knew that being capable of looking after yourself and actually doing it were two different things.

Rebecca gave her mum a kiss and said, “See you in a couple of days, Mum. Love you.”

“Love you too,” her mum said absently. “Take care, now.” Then she disappeared back into her room and they heard the theme tune start from Survivor: New York.

The Möbius made better speed underwater, but the air quickly got dry and tinny, so when they were well clear of any other boats, and far enough away from land not to be seen, they surfaced and opened the twin hatches to let the fresh cool sea air wash through the boat.

It was a sunny day, and there was a small flat area in between the two glass domes of the cockpit where you could just about lie down comfortably. Rebecca changed into her bikini and did some sunbathing, while Fatboy steered and Tane lounged half in and half out of the hatch, playing a happy bluesy tune on his harmonica.

The Möbius might have been cool, and she was very discreet, but she wasn’t fast, and it seemed to take an eternity even to get out to the tip of the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, at the northern end of the Hauraki Gulf.

“Don’t spend too long out there; you’ll burn,” Tane said. He had put sunblock on his face and arms half an hour ago and had put on a hat. Rebecca was still soaking up the sunshine, swaying gently with the movement of the boat in the water and squealing occasionally when a rough wave splashed spray over the front fins.

“Yes, Mother,” Rebecca laughed, and it would have been funny, except that Fatboy had said the same thing the day before.

“Seriously. They reckon the ozone hole is extra large this year. You’ll burn fast.”

She craned her neck up past the right-hand dome and squinted at him. “I know, you’re right,” she said. “But it’s luvverly! Nice to know you care, though.”

Tane shrugged. The sun was nice and warm on his skin; that was true. And the occasional splash of seawater provided a pleasant, refreshing spray.

He felt, rather than saw, Rebecca looking at him out of the corner of her eye and knew she had something on her mind. He shut his eyes and let the sun warm his eyelids while he waited for her to come out with it.

Rebecca said after a while, “Why do you care? Why are we such good friends? Why do you like me? Some of the kids at school won’t even talk to me.”

Tane thought about it for a while and played a few more bars before answering. “I guess they haven’t known you as long as I have.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” she asked, then said, “Chuck us the sunblock.”

Tane carefully slid the plastic bottle down the rounded yellow side of the Möbius into her outstretched hand. He said, “Think of it like this. Other people see you and they only see you as you are right at that moment. And they make up their minds about you based on that one tiny instant in time.”

“Yeah?”

“But I’ve known you all my life. I look at you and I see the little girl who wet her pants in the sandbox at kindy and blamed Mary Mackey. I see you at your tenth birthday and at your dad’s funeral. I look at you and I see all the different yous, and…” He paused. “I wonder about the ones still to come.”

Rebecca laughed, a slightly embarrassed sound. “Jeez, you talk a load of crap. I’m not sure if you’re being nice or being rude!”

“So why do you like me?” Tane asked.

Rebecca said immediately, “What on earth makes you think I like you?”

She kept a straight face long enough to make Tane think she was serious, before dissolving into another fit of laughter.

Tane thought that, despite what she said, she was secretly quite pleased with his answer. It felt good. Like the old days, before Fatboy stuck his nose in.

“Of course, some days,” he said, “you can be a real pain in the ass.”

“What do you mean…” She looked around and saw his smile and threw the bottle of sunblock at him. It bounced off the hatch and disappeared into the ocean.

“Oops,” she said.

They stopped for a while in the evening, and Rebecca, who was the most experienced cook, made a quick fry-up on the gimbal-mounted electric stove. Electric, not gas, Arthur had pointed out, because it was easier to replace electricity than oxygen.

They ate on board and continued for another hour after dinner into a sheltered cove on the lee side of Little Barrier Island. There was no point in continuing farther, as the light was fading, and running with the lights on used up the batteries twice as fast.

“It’s deserted,” Tane said, scanning the cove with binoculars. “Let’s park the sub up on the beach for a while and go for a swim.”

“Hauturu.” Fatboy shook his head, giving the island its Maori name. “We’re not allowed to land there. It’s a wildlife sanctuary.”

“We’re not allowed to break into science labs either,” Tane pointed out, “but that’s not stopping us. And what do the wild lives need sanctuary from anyway?”

Rebecca smiled but said softly, “Us.”

They did go for a swim eventually, after Fatboy jury-rigged an anchor by tying a nylon rope to the bow and diving down to secure it around a heavy rock in shallow water near the northern tip of the small cove. It seemed strange that the Möbius did not have an anchor of her own, but maybe, as Rebecca surmised, nobody ever thought she would need one.

Once the boat was secure against the gradual draw of the tide, and with the sun a dusky memory on the horizon, they fooled around for a while, dive-bombing each other off the end of the boat, dunking each other, and generally acting like a bunch of lunatics until the light faded a little too far, and the water darkened a little too much, and they climbed back on board for the night.

They sealed the hatches, released the buoy, and with a whisper of bubbles, slowly sank to the bottom of the cove, landing gently in soft sand between a small underwater ridge and a few scattered boulders.

And there, in the tranquility of Little Barrier Island, they slept, serenaded only by the gentle sounds of the sea and the hum of the air hose from the buoy.